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Following the BlackBerry Developer Day App Circus at Mobile World Congress 2011, Director of Developer Relations, Mike Kirkup, was able to give me a brief look at a BlackBerry PlayBook application developed by The Astonishing Tribe that demonstrates the power and flexibility of BlackBerry WebWorks platform.

The “aura” application shown in the video above demonstrates rich graphics and physics engine similar to TAT’s “scrapbook” demo, but was built entirely with web technologies like HTML5 and CSS. Built in a week, “aura” demonstrates how web developers can leverage the professional grade performance of the BlackBerry PlayBook platform just like Adobe AIR and native application developers.

This is a perfect example of why developers packed the BlackBerry Developer Day WebWorks bootcamp sessions yesterday. Click the link below to download the BlackBerry WebWorks SDK and start building your own BlackBerry PlayBook Application!

BlackBerry WebWorks SDK For BlackBerry Tablet OS

There’s been no shortage of excitement about BlackBerry® 6 lately – I am thrilled by the response to our latestBlackBerry 6 video and Inside BlackBerry blog posts. We wanted to find a way to outline for you, our developer community, some of the opportunities that BlackBerry 6 will bring.

One thing we want to do is differentiate the way BlackBerry 6 will affect Java® development versus Web development. Over the coming weeks, we will share tips, tricks and more information about developing for BlackBerry 6 through two separate paths. For our Java developers, we’ll work to highlight the new APIs being introduced, including a new powerful set of new User Interface controls, Universal Search integration, and a Barcode Capture API. For our web developers, we’ll start to redefine BlackBerry® Widgets and talk about the completely revamped BlackBerry Browser powered by a Webkit engine. We will cover HTML5, CSS3, and concrete steps for how you can bring your mobile site to BlackBerry® smartphones.

On top of that, we are going to continue our series covering Super Apps and how you can create an amazing user experience on the BlackBerry platform. We are now less than eight weeks away from the final deadline for the BlackBerry Partners Fund Super Apps Developer Challenge. With over $1.5 million in prizing, this is a challenge you don’t want to watch from the sidelines.

So bookmark the Inside BlackBerry Developer’s Blog (if you haven’t already!) and be sure to check back frequently for all the latest content!

I thought I’d share a few examples of some of the HTML5 input controls supported by the BlackBerry® Browser. As you know, HTML5 is the next evolution of the hyper text markup language (HTML) standard, and the BlackBerry Browser continues to grow in order to provide support for more of the HTML5 elements as they become finalized.

One of the elements that has been finalized is the new form controls. The below HTML5 controls are supported by the BlackBerry Browser in BlackBerry Device Software version 5.0. We will continue to add support for more HTML5 elements in future versions of the BlackBerry Browser.

Datalist

You can now define list item information as an independent data structure, called a datalist. This data structure can then be associated with one or more text input fields. When the user places focus on the text field, the items in the bound data list will be displayed as selectable-drop down items.

<div>
<b>Datalist example:</b><br/>
<input id="ddlModels" name="ddModels" list="lstModels"/>
<datalist>
          <option label="Pearl" value="8100">
          <option label="Bold" value="9000">
          <option label="Bold2" value="9700">
          <option label="Storm" value="9500">
          <option label="Storm2" value="9550">
</datalist>
</div>

Figure 1: HTML5 input element bound to a datalist element.

Input

The “type” attribute of an input field includes support for a wider range of supported input types, such as date, email, color and more.

Date – In my experience, formatting and validating dates in a web form can quickly become frustrating and complicated, mainly as a result of confusion over localized date formats. In order to simplify this, when an input element is defined as a date, the BlackBerry Browser will prompt the user with an easy to use date-selection control. The input field will accept values within a pre-defined min/max range.

<div>
<b>Date input example:</b> <br/>
Dates between 1900 - 1999: <input type="date" id="txtDate"  min="1900-01-01" max="1999-12-31" value=""/>
</div>

Figure 2: HTML5 date input control.

Email – Did you ever notice that when using the messaging application on BlackBerry® smartphones, you don’t have to type the “@” or “.” characters when you are typing an email address in the email address field? You simply press the space key, and the application adds the correct character, depending on the context of what has already been entered. This logic can now be applied to HTML input fields with a type of “email”.

<div>
<b>Email input example :</b> <br/>
Email address: <input type="email" id="txtEmail" value="" />
</div>

Figure 3: HTML5 email input control.

Color – By simply declaring your input control as type = “color” you immediately get an out-of-the box color selection control. The values submitted are the selected color’s hexadecimal RGB code.

<div>
<b>color picker example:</b> <b/>
Color: <input type="color" id="txtColor" value="#FF0000"/>
</div>

Figure 4: HTML5 color input control.

I hope you share in my excitement over these the new HTML 5 controls. What thrills me the most about them is just how easy they are to integrate and use in your BlackBerry web applications!

I look forward to hearing from you about the BlackBerry Browser’s support of these controls. Please let me know if you have any questions or general feedback.

One of my favorite aspects of Mike Lazaridis’ keynote today at Mobile World Congress 2010 was the preview of our upcoming WebKit browser. We have been talking about the upcoming WebKit browser since Jim Balsillie announced it at the BlackBerry Developer Conference in November, so being able to share it with you – the developer community – feels great.

For everyone who wasn’t able to attend today, we’ve embedded the WebKit demo video above for your viewing pleasure. As you can see in the video, we’ve adapted WebKit to take advantage of the incredible efficiency of the BlackBerry platform and it shows. With the new browser, pages load quickly and dynamic markup like Javascript and AJAX are fast and responsive. With improved panning and zooming it creates a seamless end user experience. The video showcases how the new browser delivers the web with full fidelity on your BlackBerry smartphone. All of this comes with full standards interoperability as shown by the 100/100 score on the ACID3 test.

As part of his App Planet keynote, Mr. Lazaridis also showcased some of the upcoming capabilities that will be supported by the new browser including:

• HTML 5
• CSS3
• DOM L3

Not only will the new browser support all of these web technologies but we are excited to confirm that it will also support two Widget standards – BlackBerry Widgets and JIL Widgets.

This substantial step forward with WebKit and our platform efficiency will enable content developers to create robust applications for both the Web and Widget development models. This browser will deliver a compelling and powerful application experience for your users.